Turbosquid send me an e-mail few weeks ago, said they wanted to discuss some personal proposals but that I needed to sign a non disclosure first so that the content of the proposals remained confidential.
I refused to sign a non disclosure so the content of the proposals remained unclear to me, I can only imagine it would have involved some efforts for boxing me in somehow?
To other fellow artists hoe would get some sort of proposals I would like to say "do not sign up for exclusivity offers and greed traps", it is bad for you and the industry, others deserve equal chance on maybe delivering a better service, it is better to keep your work available so that you may support those hoe indeed may do a better job.
Simply handing over your work to one player
will not serve you well in the long run, it will support unbalanced
situations and the only one hoe will gain the most of it is the one you bow for.
It's good we have more than one player in
the field because it encourages competition and then things evolve for the better, let's keep
it that way.
Thanks,
I did also receive an email from TS.
Who can blame them, they are doing their job. I'm sure CGT or other platforms reach for designers all the time too.
But if an artist is doing OK here, why he/she joins the guild to get 60% ?
If you are doing OK here and sell for 40% in TS you will get more than just 60% in TS
CGT and TS are the only two main remaining 3D sales sites.
TS of course do Marketing operations to Retrieve CGTrader's designers and CGTrader performs operations
marketing to recover SG members.
This is quite normal, there is no scam or any intention to harm, it's just business
On the other hand, what is unhealthy is the behavior of some SG members who take advantage of the
situation to make CGT baching on TS forums, trying to discredit CGT about tax or VAT or anything else.
This is purely pathetic.
So let's be clever and try not to do like them. We all want CGT and TS to coexist because we
all do business with both site.
If customers are reading CGT forums and think that here we are doing TS baching we will lose
credibility and sales, and we will be the cause of the disappearance of CGT
So I repeat, let's be calm and clever, let us go and keep making sales here, it's the best
means of keeping CGT and TS optimally.
It is for those buyers who are reading forums - I say.
Turbosquid forcing artists to strict rules.
Or you join a guild and do not have the right to sell at other sites, or the maximum income = 40%
This forces many of you agree on 40%, and feed them.
So buyers should always look for a similar model to CGtrader, as it will be x2 cheaper
A battle is going on right now, and some top sellers are going full #SquidClan with a custom deal from the Wisdoms: a 5-6 digit $ amount in instant cash now as an advance of a 2 year exclusivity deal, plus a boost of their royalties at the expense of all the other "non-top" sellers at Turbosquid that won't be getting any offer from Matt Wisdom. This is a totally separate "operation" that is going on under the acquisitions of CGstudio and T3DFM, which serve also as noisy cover to "wag the dog".
A shitstorm war is going on between the "Wisdom" brothers & their Top $ Corporate Investors against Marius' CGtrader, who is leading the inclusive people that don't dance to the song of dangling shiny coins in front of their eyes just for the time being and the now.
Look for the Big Picture and think medium/long term. Build your own Brand with your own criteria and goals. Think about your future:
No matter what the Wisdoms offer you now, they will make you pay x10 later once they are done with their competitors (again).
Think about the kind of treatment you can expect from these soulless corporate hacks once they can play their monopoly game again.
As long as CGtrader and Marius keep leading the inclusive marketplaces with respect for the Artists and their own branding, we at NoneCG will continue to support CGtrader and Marius indefinitely, no extra shiny coins needed for us.
If any of you think this is a show of strength from Matt Wisdom and his Corporate brother Andy, think twice. What this shows is their weakness.
CGtrader has been growing steadily faster than Turbosquid for several years, that's why they are making this desperate "first blood" move asking their Investors for an extra cash to buy Sellers out against Marius and his people, with the promise that they will fuck you to death later once the war is won for the #SquidClan.
Remember The3DStudio? just 2 years ago still existed.
Maybe you think my words are disproportionate or naive... but mark them now.
These people quote Sun Tzu when you talk to them, so guess their future plans for you.
Maybe I live in an unrealistic parallel reality, where at least some people still have some dignity and know how and when to differentiate good vs evil and take a public stand with Actions instead of just Words.
Your move...
Thanks NonCG, you can count me in the naive team, mostly think same way about it, I'm glad there is still plenty of others hoe see things through and don't give in to it and keep supporting other players as well, keeping things healthy.
It's clear Ts wants to change the situation, sad to see they keep using same old strategy's in order to do so, we'll see how that plays out in the long run.
These sort of things always reminds me to that little psychological experiment they perform on kids, they put a candy in front of a kid and get out of the room, but before doing so they tell him they are going to be away for some time, when they get back and the candy is still there, then he will get an extra candy. In 80% of the subject cases when the experimenters come back in the room, they find out that the candy has already been eaten.
It's an experiment illustrating inherent nature of most humans, that they will not be able to wait, they eat the candy right in front of them, that other candy seems so far away and makes it irrelevant right now, maybe the people do not come back etc.
They know of this inherent nature and are playing this weakness.
PS. Few weeks ago they also announced they would make a large cleaning operation, only leaving in the best and move the rest to CGstudio (and then probably leave that place to fade out, or use it to squeeze some so they would also fall for exclusivity deals?).
They seem to be out to some ultra controlled expensive elite club or something, one where only the best can get in and roll over. Personally I believe in a connected and community driven art collective and some humanity within it, Ts does not represent that at all and probably never will?
That's what I understand too, from the "leave TS to the top quality models only" I think that they will use it as a leverage to push artists to sigh exclusive deals.
The thing is, if you choose to join the guild, you are not allowed to sell in any other website, not even in your own website.
Most of the big sellers, sell on their own websites too, so I don't think it will be a smart move from TS to make it for exclusive sellers only. They will loose too much good quality products.
We'll see what happens.
IterateCGI
very Interessant information:
"PS. Few weeks ago they also announced they would make a large cleaning operation, only leaving in the best and move the rest to CGstudio (and then probably leave that place to fade out, or use it to squeeze some so they would also fall for exclusivity deals?)."
Could you send the link please.. Because if it's true, we (no exclusive members) must seriously organize us to promote ours products to CGT and increase traffic And also greatly increase our prices on TS
It was all in Ts dashboard in news section, as far as I know everyone can see that info?
Strange but I do not seem to find it anywhere now?
Sorry, I really have no reason to make up a story's, if others also have read that info pleas confirm?
Anyway's, soon after that announcement, activity started to appear in the forum, there were lots of worried messages, Ts staff replayed to not worry as it would only involve about 1600 people or so (I don't remember exact counting's) compared to the 80000 in total or so?
I was shocked to see how easily they marginalize a group of fellow artists that are probably still in the process of learning, they want to throw them in some separate neighborhood, and then when some in that place show some talent then buy them in to the elite club or something.
The one thing popping in my mind was "good", CGt is going to grow more rapidly in coming weeks.
Artists are actually more closer connected together than they might think.
You don't treat artists like some bunch of goods you can toss around, you need to earn us, not buy us or toss us around?
To the artists that get affected by these measures I would say don't worry, just come straight over here, there is more connectivity, opportunity and future for you here.
CGT and TS website's traffic increased over past couple of months.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/cgtrader.com?q=
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/turbosquid.com?q=
Supercigale you were one of the lucky ones that probably joined after all the real Turbosquid madness happened. It may be that things over the years have gotten better. I joined turbosquid very early much before you. I do not know if the management has changed or improved their ways later on but when I joined they were terrible bullies and scammed many artists. If you are happy at Turbosquid, by all means continue selling there but just watch out if at some point out of the blue things go wrong. One day my account was in good standing, the next it had been shut down. No warnings, no way to access it or my models. Everything I had worked on for at least a year gone. 200 hundred models hijacked and they never gave me access to them since. So if you have had a good experience good for you, keep doing what you are doing but I for one am never posting any models on there ever again.
Marvimation : Excuse me if I could offend you, it was not my goal at all. On the contrary, you
are important to CGTrader because you make a lot of effort to highlight
All the advantage of selling on CGTrader.
I can very well understand what you've been through, and I'm not surprised. I also had points of
Disagreement with TS, but generally I get along with the support technicians (thanks Magda and Klaudyna)
As well as Beau Perschall, they are as friendly as Daliha, Eduardas and Marius (Yes! I just win 3 like :))
However, I think you are wrong ... I understand you do not want to publish on TS, but you lose money.
I also understand that it is a question of honor ... but you lose money ... Because, that we like or that we like
Not, TS remains the first in sales volume (although the gap narrows with CGT ... There is surely someone from
TS staff who read this hehehe ...)
Suppose a catastrophic scenario .. if CGT disappears (I just sacrificed 3 chickens to ward off bad luck)
what will you do ? It's not to 3DExport or creative crash that you're going to sell something ,. And you risk
To keep a stock of 3D model that will serve you nothing.
Sometimes you have to know how to put a handkerchief on our pride (French proverb) and consider our own interest.
In a nutshell I prefer to do business with good people.
I like spending my time with good honest people and I feel that CGtrader is run by good honest people who do not try to scam me or steal from me.
I have tried many other websites over the years and so far no other website is as good as CgTrader.
I think working with good, honest, smart people is the most important thing.
The only real reason I'm still on Ts is because of pure self interest, I don't really like supporting the place but there still seems to be some (getting smaller) group of hard coded loyalist buyers that stick to Ts.
I'm clueless why,... the only thing I can imagine what is going on here is that they somehow leverage the 60% cut from non exclusives to get the models for cheap and throw that in the balance for special offerings to loyal sellers and so on?
If you think about it, Ts can buy in the goods for themselves more cheaply then any where ells because of the 60% cut right (most use same pricing everywhere), so wont they use that advantage?
let's see what would happen when all artist would add the 60% cut to the models, equalizing their share to match it op to the other places they sell?
But that's not really the point here.
It's just the sheer aggressiveness on how they are deploying exclusivity traps right now, I had hoped they could get to us in a different way?
CGtrader is doing way better job on that front, this actually really feels like a service, while Ts feels more like a gate keeper, standing in the way of me and some clients on the other side, they are collecting incredibly hefty taxes to let anyone through the gate, it feels more like a problem rather than a solution?
Also, there is the way Ts moves on dictating on how we should perform our work?
It's good we get feedback but it is getting on a level like "do it like we want or get out", can you imagine how it would play out when such place would get everyone on board with the exclusivity traps?
Don't be stupid like me!
I was so dumb to trust Turbosquid with my 3D models. I went 100 percent exclusive with them in the past and they ruined my life.
I was lucky to have half of my worked backed up on Cgtrader or I would have lost everything with zero chance of recovering.
Don't let them ruin yours!
It's funny how since this thread at the Turbosquid forums ( https://forum.squid.io/t/cgtrader-and-turbosquid-pouching-members/13456 ) pointed to this one here at CGtrader, everybody went silent on the TS one...
Years ago, Turbosquid sellers had to create an external FB group just to be able to talk without censorship. That alone says a lot about the relationship between Turbosquid and their content providers.
It's been already discussed a lot over the years, specially in this thread: https://www.cgtrader.com/forum/topics/what-makes-cg-trader-better-than-turbosquid
It's not just that by going exclusive most people lose money, specially top sellers: http://i.imgur.com/1T6TCRI.png
Turbosquid's problems are not just a case of a few people getting wronged by misunderstandings and strange reasons either.
It's just the way they do business. It's the total lack of scruples and the constant shady corporate tactics:
http://rebloggy.com/post/art-copyright-turbosquid-infringement-kouotsu-ip-theft-kouotsu/34732573054
http://www.nonecg.com/turbosquid/turbosquid_nonecg.htm (long)
even to the point of impersonating competitors in their marketing campaigns: http://i.imgur.com/EcqwmXM.jpg
These last acquisitions and buyout campaigns are just the last effort in trying to hurt CGtrader's growth and success.
Look at the situation in 2013: http://i.imgur.com/yxhcIvK.png
Then look at it now: http://i.imgur.com/yLwcByS.png
The main problem with Turbosquid is that their business model is based on keeping the content producers and customers as far as they can from each other and profit from it, whereas CGtrader is all about community and contact between sellers and customers, and among sellers themselves. Can you imagine Amazon or Ebay working like Turbosquid?
In the end, it's just as marvimation says: Either you decide to work only with good, honest people or you don't.
The only power they have is what we, as the real content producers, decide to give them. And whatever may seem a benefit in the short term may end biting you in the back in the long run.
@NoneCG. Yes. I agree with you. CGT went 30k to 10k while TS 10k to 6k over past couple of months. CGT made lot of improvements when compared to TS. May I ask how you compared multiple site. Is it alexa pro version?
That TS thread already been hijacked. It's looks like it's all about "VAT" system. That's why I pointed this thread in there. TS was my first marketplace. I was a SG member and leaved in December.
I thought I'm working with honest people and now I don't.
It's very sad that pay for top artists to become a exclusive member. Wondering how much royalty rate, top artist like 3d molier gets.
It's SimilarWeb: https://www.similarweb.com/website/cgtrader.com?competitors=turbosquid.com
What they are doing now are custom negotiations with each seller. Nobody gets the same, it all depends on every seller negotiation skills. Once both parts agree on a % royalty increase over their previous arrangement, they pay that increment in advance for the 2 years of exclusivity. That's so no other seller can know how much % any other is getting, as it won't be reflected on the regular % of each account, just in this advanced payment.
For top sellers like 3D_Molier, Squir and such that means a 5-6 figure check in their pocket right now. So that weighs a lot.
Interestingly enough, however, from the top 100 sellers at CGtrader just 4 went TS exclusive.
So it seems most people and studios did the right math anyway or just don't fall for TS tricks anymore.
Well that is precisely my point I was not given one! I can only assume that they did not like I was moving up the ranks quickly by selling my models cheap. According to their website rules and regulations when the site just opened they stated you could sell your models at any price you wanted.
I had set up a 1 dollar 3D store and was selling at least a model every other day before suddenly, my account was gone, no warning, no chance to be reinstated etc...
I tried contacting them on many accounts. The customer support people were very kind but there was nothing they could do.
I asked to speak to the upper management and they refused to answer any of my questions. They just said my account was closed and that I could no longer sell on there.
It isn't a secret... just a really sad story of someone who got bullied and abused by their website.
The worst part was that I was unable to get them to give me my models back or get any real information on what I could do to fix the situation.
I was also bullied on the forums for a while because I was trying to explain to those people that whenever I raised my prices even when trying to sell at let's say 5 dollars no one ever bought any of my models.
Back then my models were of much lesser quality and not textured so in my opinion they were only worth about a dollar each anyway.
Yes! Thanks Hend Z!
The CGTrader team has been amazing over the years! They really helped put me back on my feet and turn things around for me.
First off, when I joined CGtrader Dalia uploaded all my models for me. You can imagine how much time I saved!
Then they always provide excellent customer care here at CGtrader.
With their help and the great support group on the forums I have been able to learn so much about 3D and how to improve the quality of my models.
If Dalia from CGtrader had not found me and invited me to join Cgtrader when I had lost everything I would have given up trying to sell or even on doing 3D.
Now recently I am even learning about 3D printing and turning my content into toys!
Some final words and stance on the Ts front.
!!Warning long!!
The thing is the whole playfield has changed but Ts has almost not changed at all in all those years, in the last year there was more change then in all 8 before it, so seemingly some competition can do wonders?
I cannot make the bill for somebody ells but back in the day's it was enormously expensive to run such server infrastructures and host large amounts of data. The server infrastructure also needed allot of scaling headroom to accommodate the peaks in traffic, that meant the infrastructure would in most cases utilize only 20% of its capacity etc.(not efficient at all). Also the development and maintenance of the software infrastructure (the web application and database) was a very expensive deal, it would involve a big team of highly skilled developers working the clock round.
It still is a big deal today but things have changed allot.
Now day's we have Amazon AWS and Google Cloud etc., those provide enterprise level scalable servers and 100% utilization (max efficiency) for a fraction of the cost compared to 8 years ago.
The cost of mass storage also has come down rapidly, and with lots of new feature rich development frameworks, smaller teams can now build powerful platforms and meaningful web applications and deploy them much faster at lower cost.
You still need skilful developers hoe can work with those new development frameworks but they can do things now that where unimaginable 8 years ago (same thing with us 3D designers).
CGtrader was amongst the first of a kind to leverage all these new tools/technologies and could bring something to people for the fraction of the cost. This all makes it the more hurt if you consider Ts still needs a 60% cut for the expenses.
It seems like time have stood still for Ts all these years and they could not bring down operational cost?
That's the thing, they did not need to because there was no competition, as they argue themselves 80% is exclusives.
I'm glad there still is a seemingly powerful group of inclusive people that can exert meaningful force in other direction. We support and invest in these new tech adapts and innovative companies, and so those that do not adapt or innovate are in danger of getting irrelevant, that creates a healthy premise for action because one cannot afford to keep standing still and do business as usual.
I understand there are new challenges on the horizon like the shift to VR/AR and new services/infrastructures to accommodate all that, it remains to be seen hoe is going to get that right and how much those new services then would cost etc.?
I do not really want to see losers, just good services and winners, and not just one calling all the shots.
The thing is, Ts also provides a service, they are business people making business decisions, no emotion no noting just plane business. We can have endless discussions about good and wrong decisions but they make up their own mind on how they want to move forward and provide value, time will tell what works and what not.
Most of us designers are also business people, we need to be, otherwise we do not grow.
We also want to move forward and make our work practical and profitable.
However, we can go about it in different ways, take for example a look at Epic (makers of Unreal engine) and the slogan "we succeed when you succeed", we give you the tools, you thrive we thrive etc.
We cannot compare the businesses but the strategy is something to learn from.
CGtrader walks in this same spirit and takes a comparable approach to things and it brings more value to the whole community.
In contrast take for example Oculus, they make decisions to go exclusive on VR titles because they think this would be the way to guarantee own success, now HTC Vive and steam platform (which is completely open) is out selling Oculus 2 to 1.
There are many cases that show inclusive strategies work better then exclusive ones.
As an individual artist I want to support independent developers and feed an ecosystem and grow a healthy business environment and be connected (they thrive we thrive etc.).
Just, provide meaningful service, be innovative, make things practical, add value and most importantly, listen to the users.
My personal stance as a single user on the Ts front is as follows (just plane self interest no emotion not good versus evil).
I consider the service very expensive and dominantly self centered, certainly if considering it is possible to run a comparable (but open) service at the fraction of the cost. Now they are trying to trick me saying cost could be mush lower but then I need to sell out and trust them that they are going to deliver the best job?
No, that is up to me to decide and most valuable force to protect, I keep my eye open what others are also doing so good luck, just do your best, maybe I support you, baby not, it depends.
My advice to them would be spend the money on development of great tools, if they have value then people will use them, do not spend money on buying people and locking them in and then do nothing, that will probably backfire.
The only real reason I still have a presence at Ts is because there still are some hard coded Ts users over there, and it is also unclear to me how Ts is going to move to make things future proof.
In mean time I ended my additional support for the service and do not update my profile or post new offerings. I keep a presence there in case things turn for the better, but they don't get my additional support until then, and as additional measures the cost of the service is reflected in the offerings I provide there. I consider this fare trade as those clients deserve freedom to keep using Ts, but they need to pay the higher price that transaction brings. There are other transaction options available to them if they want to.
My fifty cents.
You guys are rocking. Please continue to trade on CGT, and don't leave this market. I think CGT means you guys. If you leave CGT, there'll be only the TS. It means such guys as me (who currently sells both on CGT, TS and other markets) will left with nothing, because they are already almost nothing on TS. Please continue to support each other.
I like a lot of what Iterate CG is saying especially where he states that he doesn't want Turbosquid to disappear because as much as they have hurt me, it is not fair for all the good artists, and customer service people who would loose their jobs on there.
A lot of times people get caught up in wanted to take down bad people but one must also think about who goes down with them. If the owners of Turbosquid suddenly went bankrupt and the company disappeared then everyone at Turbosquid would incur damage and losses.
Basically I do not want what happened to me to happen to anyone else. Instead of shutting down Turbosquid a better way to combat them is what Cgtrader is doing. They are leading the industry by example by doing good and being successful at it.
This way CGtrader's business keeps going up and Turbosquid eventually will have to run their business more like Cgtrader to stay in business. That way everybody wins and no good people loose their jobs.
If you think about it during the financial crisis, the situation with wall street and the banks got even worse when the top dogs and scammers got caught and sent to jail etc...
You can't just get rid of bad people... you have to find good people to replace them and keep things running for all the good people.
When all of those bad people got removed from the system, the system failed to replace them with good people, companies shut down, others merged but because of that the entire economy structure was destroyed and even more good people were affected by that then the bad.
Those bad people will get a few years in jail and come out and back on top while all the good people who lost their jobs took so much damage and required so much time to get back on their feet.
Well I just decided to close my TS account, I had it up for a year and figured that even though it's pretty much theft that they are taking 60%.. that I'll give it a try. However the sales numbers were also not that good that it would have been worth it. Meanwhile I was seeing much more return here on CGtrader. Like so many stated before, TS just puts a wall in between you and your buyers. On top of that I found the "support" to be pretty bad and their interface is awful.
Long story short, glad to be here at CGTrader ;- )
From Turbosquid and 3Dexport i got many mailed to sale my models on There platform . may be CGtrader doing well and keep improving that's why other sites are trying to break artists relationship with CGtrader . will just request you to make your site more secure and please keep advertising our products . and increase sale . will with CGtrader till my end . I hope you guys get Your Decision well. Also please change your Taxation type . will cant afford income after paying all taxes and royalty because i am from India . will be suggest you to try direct payment in our local bank account . and get access to withdrawal amount any time to all artist . i hope you can understand our situation and get best decision .
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